Talk Python To Me

Excel is one of the most used and most empowering piece of software out there. But that doesn't make it a good fit for every data processing need. And when you outgrow Excel, a really good option for a next step is Python and the data science tech stack: Pandas, Jupyter, and friends.

We know our unit tests should be relatively independent from other parts of the system. For example, running a test shouldn't generally call a credit card possessing API and talk to a database when your goal is just to test the argument validation.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)'s primary function is the construction and operation of planetary robotic spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth- orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASA's Deep Space Network.

If you're into data science, you've probably heard about Dask. It's a package that feels like familiar APIs such as Numpy, Pandas, and Scikit-Learn. Yet it can scale that computation across CPU cores on your local machine all the way to distributed grid-based computing in large clusters.

As Python 3 has eclipsed the old constrains of Python 2 and web frameworks that adopted them, we have seen a big jump in new frameworks appearing on the scene taking full advantage of things like type hints, async and await, and more.

Web scraping is pulling the HTML of a website down and parsing useful data out of it. The use-cases for this type of functionality are endless. Have a bunch of data on governmental sites that are only listed online in HTML without a download? There's an API for that! Do you want to keep abreast of what your competitors are featuring on their site? There's an API for that. Need alerts for changes on a website, for example enrollment is now open at your college and you want to be first to get in and avoid the 8am Monday morning course slot? There's an API for that.

Git hook scripts are useful for identifying simple issues before committing your code. Hooks run on every commit to automatically point out issues in code such as trailing whitespace and debug statements. By pointing these issues out before code review, this allows a code reviewer to focus on the architecture of a change while not wasting time with trivial style nitpicks.

I love to bring you stories of Python being used in amazing places outside the traditional tech silos of pure web development and data science. On this episode, you'll meet Robert "Kane" Replogle, who works on the simulation and test software at Richard Childress Racing. The NASCAR team that just finished #1 and 2 in at the Texas Motor Speedway.

If there has ever been a time in history that journalism is needed to shine a light on what's happening in the world, it's now. Would it surprise you to hear that Python and machine learning are playing an increasingly important role in discovering and bringing us the news? On this episode, you'll meet Carolyn Stansky, a journalist and developer who's been researching this intersection.

Python is quick and easy to learn. And yet, there is a massive gap between knowing the common aspects of the language (loops, variables, functions, and so on) and how to write a well-factored application using modern tools and libraries. That's where learning Python is a never-ending journey.

If there is one message I've been pushing across all of the Talk Python episodes, it's that programming is a superpower. Rather than all of us abandoning what we're interested in and becoming CS majors, we can take our passion or expertise and 10x it with a little programming skill.

We recently covered 10 tips that every Flask developer should know. But we left out a pretty big group in the Python web space: Django developers! And this one is for you. I invited Bob Belderbos, who's been running his SaaS business on Python and Django for several years now, to share his tips and tricks.

We're back with another GeekOut episode. Richard Campbell, a developer and podcaster who also dives deep into science and tech topics, is back for our second GeekOut episode. Last time we geeked out about the real science and progress around a moon base. This time it's why is there life on Earth, where could it be or have been in the solar system, and beyond.

Do you obsess about writing your code just the right way before you get started? Maybe you have some ugly code on your hands and you need to make it better. Either way, refactoring could be your ticket to happier days! On this episode, we'll talk through a powerful example of iteratively refactoring some code until we eventually turn our ugly duckling into a Pythonic beauty.

Do you write data science code? Do you struggle loading large amounts of data or wonder what parts of your code use the maximum amount of memory? Maybe you just want to require smaller compute resources (servers, RAM, and so on).